Volpicelli, Caterina, Venerable

VOLPICELLI, Caterina, Venerable. - Foundress of the Institute of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart, b. in Naples on 21 Jan. 1839; d. there on 28 Dec. 1894.

Desirous of embracing the religious life and confirmed in her resolve by Fr. Ludovico da Casoria, she sought to enter among the Adorers of the Most Blessed Sacrament; but she had to return to her family because of illness. She then devoted herself to the care of divine worship, providing the necessities for poor churches, and to various charitable activities, offering herself to God also as an expiatory victim. Having joined the "Apostolate of Prayer," she was its first zealous promoter in Naples. Having become freer of herself through the death of her parents, she continued her works with redoubled zeal and fervor and associated other young women with herself, thus, in 1865, laying the foundations of her new Institute, which devotes itself to spreading the "Apostolate of Prayer," promoting and disseminating its various sections, and to caring for the Christian education of girls. The Congregation also includes a lay branch for young ladies and ladies, who aim to honor the Sacred Heart through their own perfection and the exercise of works of charity.

A strong and willful nature, she knew how to give a particular stamp to her work, governing it with assiduity and care and multiplying its houses. The cause of beatification was introduced on 11 Jan. 1911 and the decree on the heroicity of the virtues proclaimed on 25 March 1945 (AAS, 37 [1945], pp. 240-43).

Celestino Testore